This is for those who suffer. Your soul a canyon of ache. Perhaps you're tired of this world, this life and your circumstances.
Battling demons of despair, anxiety, chronic illness, or grief so profound it feels like a betrayal to even try to be "joyful" at times. Its understandable, this world... Is a pit of darkness so far spread its unavoidable.
Maybe you have tried a church, talking it out and laying it all down but if you're anything like me, I'd say that didn't go well?
In today's world, anymore the church is a cherry picked marshmallow doctrine of "live your best life", "be happy", "everything will be okay" .... A false hope, a false image of life.
The world, and sadly, much of the modern church that has conformed to it, preaches a gospel of prosperity. And if not that, a condemning wolf doctrine of "do better".
A gospel of smiling faces, proud looks, triumphant declarations, and a push for a happiness that is as thin as paper. It has no vocabulary for the language of lament.
It has no room for the limping, the wounded, the ones who, like Jacob, walk with a permanent injury from a long night of wrestling with God.
But listen closely, dear outcast. The Kingdom of God was built for you.
Jesus didn't say, "Come to me, all you who have it all together." He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) His inner circle wasn't the religious elite with their pristine robes; it was fishermen, tax collectors (the traitors of their day), zealots, and a woman with a history of five broken marriages.
He was "a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem." (Isaiah 53:3)
The world throws stones. It places burdens too heavy to carry. And when a church becomes worldly, it does the same. It trades the costly grace of the cross for the cheap currency of cliches. It forgets the core command: "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2)
The law of Christ is not a law of performative happiness; it is the law of sacrificial love. To the church that has forgotten: We have sanitized the gospel. We have created a culture where authenticity is a liability. We have welcomed the "presentable" and shunned the "messy," forgetting that we are all beggars who have simply found bread.
The true body of Christ is not a museum for saints; it is a hospital for sinners. And in a hospital, you don't hide your wound. You show them to the physician and to those He has appointed as nurses.
To my fellow wounded warriors: Your deep struggle does not mean you lack faith. It means your faith is being refined in the fire. You are in the company of the Psalmists who screamed, "How long, O Lord?"
You walk with Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet." You share in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings (Philippians 3:10), and that is a sacred, if painful, place to be.
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18)
He is not distant from your pain; He is near to it. His power is "made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9) Your feeling of being an outcast from a comfortable, worldly system may just be the greatest evidence that you are, in fact, not of it.
You are a citizen of a different Kingdom - one that recognizes the crown of thorns before the crown of glory.
You are not alone. You are not a project. You are a person, deeply loved by a God who entered into the deepest pain to bring the deepest healing. Hold on. There are still corners of His body where the wounded are welcomed. Seek them out. Be one for someone else. And may we all learn to weep with those who weep.
And if you do not know Christ, may you come to Him in repentance - from unbelief to belief and may He comfort your soul.
I was going to end this here with an amen, but I believe there is more to say:
So if you’re reading this, and you’re hurting - you are not disqualified.
If you’re different - you are not disposable.
If the world judges you, and even the church avoids you - Christ runs toward you.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were obsessed with appearances. Clean hands, long prayers, public piety. But Jesus called them “whitewashed tombs” - beautiful on the outside through worldly deception but full of death within. (Matthew 23:27)
Worldly Christianity - flashy, feel-good, performance-based - has nothing to do with Christ.
Real Christianity is costly. It’s cross-shaped. It’s marked by tears, sacrifice, and deep dependence on grace.
So to the hurting, the weary, the misunderstood - you are seen.
You are not alone.
You are the ones Jesus was sent to heal. And one day - one glorious day - He will wipe every tear from your eyes. (Revelation 21:4)
This is the real - true hope...
Until then, know this: The true Church isn’t a building, a program, or a perfect image.
It’s you - the broken, the beloved, the called-out ones - living stones in His eternal Kingdom.
Grace, peace and mercy to you, my friend. Hold on to God, for He will never leave nor forsake you.
Never Consent to Evil
This is for those who suffer. Your soul a canyon of ache. Perhaps you're tired of this world, this life and your circumstances.
Battling demons of despair, anxiety, chronic illness, or grief so profound it feels like a betrayal to even try to be "joyful" at times. Its understandable, this world... Is a pit of darkness so far spread its unavoidable.
Maybe you have tried a church, talking it out and laying it all down but if you're anything like me, I'd say that didn't go well?
In today's world, anymore the church is a cherry picked marshmallow doctrine of "live your best life", "be happy", "everything will be okay" .... A false hope, a false image of life.
The world, and sadly, much of the modern church that has conformed to it, preaches a gospel of prosperity. And if not that, a condemning wolf doctrine of "do better".
A gospel of smiling faces, proud looks, triumphant declarations, and a push for a happiness that is as thin as paper. It has no vocabulary for the language of lament.
It has no room for the limping, the wounded, the ones who, like Jacob, walk with a permanent injury from a long night of wrestling with God.
But listen closely, dear outcast. The Kingdom of God was built for you.
Jesus didn't say, "Come to me, all you who have it all together." He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) His inner circle wasn't the religious elite with their pristine robes; it was fishermen, tax collectors (the traitors of their day), zealots, and a woman with a history of five broken marriages.
He was "a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem." (Isaiah 53:3)
The world throws stones. It places burdens too heavy to carry. And when a church becomes worldly, it does the same. It trades the costly grace of the cross for the cheap currency of cliches. It forgets the core command: "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2)
The law of Christ is not a law of performative happiness; it is the law of sacrificial love. To the church that has forgotten: We have sanitized the gospel. We have created a culture where authenticity is a liability. We have welcomed the "presentable" and shunned the "messy," forgetting that we are all beggars who have simply found bread.
The true body of Christ is not a museum for saints; it is a hospital for sinners. And in a hospital, you don't hide your wound. You show them to the physician and to those He has appointed as nurses.
To my fellow wounded warriors: Your deep struggle does not mean you lack faith. It means your faith is being refined in the fire. You are in the company of the Psalmists who screamed, "How long, O Lord?"
You walk with Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet." You share in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings (Philippians 3:10), and that is a sacred, if painful, place to be.
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18)
He is not distant from your pain; He is near to it. His power is "made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9) Your feeling of being an outcast from a comfortable, worldly system may just be the greatest evidence that you are, in fact, not of it.
You are a citizen of a different Kingdom - one that recognizes the crown of thorns before the crown of glory.
You are not alone. You are not a project. You are a person, deeply loved by a God who entered into the deepest pain to bring the deepest healing. Hold on. There are still corners of His body where the wounded are welcomed. Seek them out. Be one for someone else. And may we all learn to weep with those who weep.
And if you do not know Christ, may you come to Him in repentance - from unbelief to belief and may He comfort your soul.
I was going to end this here with an amen, but I believe there is more to say:
So if you’re reading this, and you’re hurting - you are not disqualified.
If you’re different - you are not disposable.
If the world judges you, and even the church avoids you - Christ runs toward you.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were obsessed with appearances. Clean hands, long prayers, public piety. But Jesus called them “whitewashed tombs” - beautiful on the outside through worldly deception but full of death within. (Matthew 23:27)
Worldly Christianity - flashy, feel-good, performance-based - has nothing to do with Christ.
Real Christianity is costly. It’s cross-shaped. It’s marked by tears, sacrifice, and deep dependence on grace.
So to the hurting, the weary, the misunderstood - you are seen.
You are not alone.
You are the ones Jesus was sent to heal.
And one day - one glorious day - He will wipe every tear from your eyes. (Revelation 21:4)
This is the real - true hope...
Until then, know this:
The true Church isn’t a building, a program, or a perfect image.
It’s you - the broken, the beloved, the called-out ones - living stones in His eternal Kingdom.
Grace, peace and mercy to you, my friend. Hold on to God, for He will never leave nor forsake you.
Amen.
5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 0